Roof gutter



. July 15, 1958 J. c. THOMSON 2,843,063

RooF GUTTER Filed Feb. 4, 1954 RUOF GUTTER John C. Thomson, Chicago, Ill.

Application February 4, 1954, Serial No. 408,118

1 Claim. (Cl. 108--28) This invention relates to roof gutters for buildings and other structures, and particularly to a gutter which is fixed in place by means of hanger members attached to the gutter without use of bolts, screws or rivets.

Roof gutters are normally used to receive Water draining from the roof of the building or other structure to which the gutter is attached, and through a proper slope of the gutter along the roof edge to convey the drainage water to a low point at which a downspout is located leading to a discharge point.

Hanger straps as heretofore made for holding roof gutters in place are generally nailed at one end to the roof or other part of the building. Ordinarily they are either bolted, screwed or riveted to the gutter at the other end.

This common method of attaching the hanger to the gutter has several disadvantages. It requires extra parts in addition to the hanger straps and the gutter itself. The fabrication or installation of such a gutter (depend ing upon whether the hangers are attached to the gutter in the shop or at the site) is very time-consuming; holes must be punched in the hanger and the gutter, and the bolt, screw or rivet put in place. It is most common to punch the holes in the gutter when fabricating it in the metal shop, but this makes it impossible as a practical matter to space the hangers (as is desirable for greatest strength) at the points where the roof rafters or other supports are located in the building or other structure to which the gutter is to be aiiixed.

The bolts, screws or rivets may become rusted through or otherwise damaged. If because of this or any other reason the hanger straps must be replaced, the replacement operation is not only time-consuming but may be dangerous when carried out at the height at which roof gutters are ordinarily installed. Rusting or other corro sion of the bolts, screws or rivets will cause streaking of the outside of the gutter or the building wall when overflow drainage from the gutter spills over the side; and such spilling over is made more likely by the Very form of construction used at the point where the hanger is attached to the gutter.

The gutter and hanger of this invention has none of these disadvantages. It is quick and easy to install. There are no parts besides the Very simple hanger members and the gutter itself. The gutter is installed rst, there are no holes to be punched to attach the hangers to the gutter, and no bolts, screws or rivets to bother with orto 'become damaged or permit passage of water to the exterior of the gutter.

As the precise location of the hangers along the gutter need not be decided upon until the gutter is installed, the hangers may be nailed or otherwise attached at their upper ends to the roof rafters or other supporting members of the structure to which the gutter is being attached-thus providing the greatest possible strength of construction. Because the hanger in this invention is not flush with the top edge of the gutter but instead is within and spaced below the edge, no drainage water nited States Patent O from the roof will flow down the top of the hanger and spill over the side of the gutter to cause marking or discoloration of the gutter and/ or the wall.

In the drawing:

Figure 1 is a perspective view showing one embodiment of the gutter of this invention in place at the eaves of a building; and

Figure 2 is a side elevation of the gutter in place; and

Figure 3 is a fragmentary side elevation of another embodiment of the gutter of this invention.

Referring to Figure 2, gutter 10 has a bottom wall 11 and inner and outer side walls 12 and 13 respectively forming a water trough. It is preferably made of galvanized iron or of copper. The extreme outer edge portion 14 of side wall 13 is bent or folded inwardly upon itself so as to form an internal V as at 22 in cross section for receiving the end of the supporting strap or hanger as will be explained. This forms ange 14. Preferably the outer edge portion or flange is bent as shown in Figure l, preferably into a plane approximately parallel to slanting roof 1S.

Also the side wall 13 is curved in any pleasing manner such as an ogee curve and is formed with a substantially horizontal portion 16 and a substantially vertical portion 26 thereby providing a second internal V as at 17 0pposed to the V 22 formed by flange 14. This construction makes it possible to attach the hanger straps after securing the gutterin place and at the precise points of greatest strength of the roof, such as at the roof rafters or other supports. The fixed spacing of the holes for'the bolts, screws or rivets of the conventional gutter which, makes this impossible with the gutters of the prior art are4 omitted, for with them the hangers must be attached to the roof at arbitrarily determined that is, fixed points rather than at the points of greatest strength.

For supporting the foregoing gutter, a hanger or strap 18, preferably made of galvanized iron or copper, is utilized and has a preformed aperture in its upper end permitting nailing to the roof of a building. Preferably the strap is continuous and in one plane except atits opposite or lower end which is formed to interlock and lie entirely within the upper terminating edge of the outer wall of the gutter. For this purpose the outer end of the strap is bent back upon itself as at 20 to form a hook 19 preferably of proper length to frictionally engage between the two internal Vs 17 and 22, that is, the hooked end 19 may be snapped into position between 17 and 22.

It is seen that hanger 18 may be very quickly and easily installed by hand, for it need simply be hooked behind flange 14 and then snapped into position secure against any normal force that might be applied to the gutter and tend to disengage the hanger strap. The hangers will thus operate somewhat as a truss and will be under tension to hold the gutter in shape against the bending forces of water, ice, debris, etc. that may accumulate in the gutter. In so doing the hanger is under direct tension inasmuch as the hanger, except as to its hooked end, lies within one plane and the fastening means for securing the hanger to the roof is under shear stress rather than direct tension tending to directly pull the nail or screw out of its anchorage.

It is seen that there are several forces that operate to keep hook 19 firmly engaged. The resilience of the material from which the gutter is fabricated causes clamping pressures to be exerted on hook 19 between the Vs 17 and 22.

As seen from Figure 2, the longer hook portion 19 is made, the tighter will be the fit between hanger 18 and the gutter.

The fit will generally be sufficiently tight even if ange 14 is not bent as far as is shown in Figure 2, but only far enough to form a V into which end portion 24 of hook 19 may be tted. However, the ilt is rnade still tighter if, as shown in Figure 2, flange 14 is crimped tightly enough that the plane of flange 14 is made to have a smaller angle of slope with respect to the ground than the angle of slope oftheplane of hook 19. VThis creates additional pressure on hook 19 at edge 23 of ange 14.

To increase the clamping pressure still further, the total internal angle between the planes forming the V 17 should be less in the uninstalled gutter than it will be in the gutter when in place.

Figure 3 is a fragmentary side elevation of another embodiment of the gutter of this invention, in which the lower end of hanger 18 is bent upwardly at 20 to provide a Vertical portion paralleling the vertical portion 26 of the gutter and again bent at 25'to provide a horizontal portion paralleling the portion '27 of the gutter and terminating within the V22.

This embodiment of the gutter is installed in the same way as the embodiment of Figure 2. That is, the interlocking end of the hanger is hooked behind the an'gey 14 in the V 22 and is then snapped into the V 17. In some installations it has been found sufficient to merely engage the end of the hanger in the V 22 without having a snap t between V 22 and V 17.

When the two bends in the lower end of hanger 18 are confined in the Vs as indicated additional stability is provided as shown in this embodiment.

Hangers used for roof gutters are generally of a width `approximating one inch or more. Thus, an appreciable amount of water will flow down the sloping hanger from the roof. In the conventional roof gutter in which the hanger is bolted, screwed or riveted to top wall 27, this Water will tend to flow across the top wall and to spill over the side. If the bolt or rivet used to attach the hanger to the gutter has become rusted, this will not only cause drainage water to drip over the side of the gutter, but will also tend to stain the gutter at that point.

It is seen from Figures 2 and 3 that any drainage water flowing down hanger 18 of this invention will drain into the gutter and drain ofI with the rest of the drainage water from the roof. v

The foregoing detailed description has been given for clearness of understanding only. No unnecessary limitations should be understood therefrom, as modifications will be obvious to those skilled in the art.

I claim:

In combination, a roof gutter having a bottom wall, inner and outer side walls forming a trough therebetween, said inner wall having a flange adapted to extend over the edge of the roof to be fastened directly to the upper surface of the roof of a building, said outer wall terminating at its top edge into interlocking hanger receiving means spaced a substantial distance from the edge of said roof and including two spaced V portions, and a sheet metal hanger for supporting said outer wall from said roof, the inner end of said hanger having a terminating end adapted to overlie said flange and be secured to said roof, whereby said hanger and gutter are supported by means passing through said flange and inner end of said hanger with all securing means passing into the upper surface of the edge of said roof and the outer end of said hanger having an interlocking engagement with said two V portions in Vsaid top edge of said outer wall, said outer end of said hanger lying entirely within the interlocking portion of said 'outer wall and being free of extraneous securing means, that portion of the hanger between its point of attachment to the building and its point ofinterlocking engagement with said outer wall of said gutter kring substantially in a straight line, whereby said hanger is in tension when supporting the outer wall of said gutter against movement away from said inner wall.

References Cited in the tile of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,005,885 Ross et al. Oct. 17, 1911 1,226,712 Skillman May 22, 1917 1,855,241 Irwin Apr. 26, 1932 1,936,079 Belding Nov. 2l, 1933 1,940,369 Peal Dec. 19, 1933 2,536,704 Shea et al. Jan. 2, 1951 FOREIGN PATENTS 110,726 Australia of 1940 

